


What If

by sprucewoodcottage (ironmermaidens)



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Gen, mmhmmb!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25661212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmermaidens/pseuds/sprucewoodcottage
Summary: Like the flap of a butterflies wings, or dominoes falling in a row, one small change can make the world of difference. So how would things be different for Evil X?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	What If

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a story so much as it is a series of ideas for how Make Me Hurt, Make Me Bleed could have gone differently, if things just happened in a slightly different order, or characters made a slightly different choice. I might expand on a few at a later date or even add more to this document (I haven't in quite awhile so I figured it would be safe to share it, even though I like to add things in chronological order to the events of MMHMMB). Some ideas have already generated interest with my OG audience on TRSNS server, so if there's any you're interested in seeing more of please don't hesitate to let me know!

**In one version of events,** when he finds Mumbo, he is not overpowered. He brings Mumbo home. He's a hero. Mumbo is still traumatized by his experiences in the red sun world, but Grian and Iskall are not traumatized by him. Evil X isn't either. When the hermits get Mumbo settled, in a much cozier infirmary than the obsidian prison, Evil X slips away, back to his cave, back into obscurity. No one asks after him. No one notices he's gone. 

**In another version,** they find him before his first death. He's tense as Joe undoes the lead binding his wrist, but he doesn't punch him when he's freed. He yanks his hand out of Joe's grasp, pulls the rest of his bindings off on his own. He staggers to the table where his helmet is, limping thanks to a phantom pain in his calf, and snaps, "I can do it myself!" at Doc when he attempts to help him. 

Mumbo doesn't get a nice infirmary this time, but for Evil X, things progress as if he had. He stalks off back to his cave, waves off the concern the hermits express with a snarl, and if he moves about the server just a little more tensely, scares just a little more easily, well, no one says anything to him.

**In another he wakes up with a gasp on a quartz table,** his vision fuzzy around the edges and his head full of cotton. He feels hands tugging at the binding on his wrist and he tries to pull away from them, until Joe's familiar voice shushes him. The last thing he remembers is Mumbo's scalpel in his throat, and choking on his own blood. 

Joe helps him sit up, helps him off the table, and he's too weak and disoriented to fight him. He lets Joe lead him out of the lab, out of the red sun world, and when they're back in the overworld again he doesn't go to his cave. He goes home with Joe, because he's too tired to argue when Joe suggests it, too out of it to know what he's even agreed to. Evil X wakes up in an unfamiliar but cozy bed to the smell of steak and eggs and toast. Joe asks him what happened over breakfast that he's brought to Evil X in bed, and Evil X tells him. Evil X tells him everything. 

**In another he's crying out weakly for Mumbo,** begging to have his eyes returned to him. He resists the hermits when they try to take him from the red sun world. He can't leave without his eyes. They force him to anyway. He can't see, and he resents them for it. He never forgives them.

**Maybe Iskall and Doc design augmented eyes for him so he can see again.** He accepts the peace offering begrudgingly.

**Or maybe they brought his eyes with them,** and he convinces Cleo to put them back. He regains his vision, and she finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together, finally realizes what he is. She asks him what happened in the red sun world, and he tells her, but it does little to fix the hurt he's felt at Mumbo's hands, and at everyone's hands. 

He still gets startled when he’s snuck up upon. He feels nauseous at the sight of quartz. Redstone ticking makes him sick. When he wakes up from a nightmare the first thing he checks is if he still has his eyes. 

**Maybe when Iskall arrives in the red sun world he doesn't succumb.** He stops Mumbo, and he saves Evil X. Evil X isn't so eager to share his story now when he's the only one that was too weak to overpower Mumbo. 

He kills Mumbo. He's put in a box. Xisuma is the only person who visits him.

**Or maybe Iskall succumbs,** but Grian doesn't. The hermits build Mumbo's box at Grian's base instead. Iskall invites Evil X to stay with him once he respawns. Evil X accepts, if only because being alone sounded infinitely more frightening than being with Iskall. 

It's difficult to adapt to life with another person. It's difficult when that person has friends who come to visit. It's even more difficult when Iskall insists that he stay when Stress and Ren and Grian visit. They treat him like a friend, and he hates every second of it. Hates it even more when fat tears roll down his cheeks and their arms wrap around his shoulders, hates it the absolute most when words come tumbling out of his mouth, muffled against their clothing but not enough that they don't understand what he's telling them. Not enough that their hands don't rub comforting circles into his back while they whisper reassurance in his ears.

He doesn't kill Mumbo this time. He isn't put in a box. Xisuma isn't the only person who visits him at Iskall's base.

**Maybe his first night back on the server,** after he's thrown up his meal and gone home with Xisuma, Xisuma asks him what happened. He hasn't sat with his trauma for long, he's exhausted by the prospect of rehashing it so soon, but it's Xisuma asking him, not Iskall, not Doc, not Joe. So he tells his story. Evil X tells Xisuma every bloody detail he can remember. His voice is low and rough from puking, but it wasn't so long ago the rawness of his throat was from screaming, from crying. 

The next day they don't go to Grian's base. Evil X stays curled up in bed and Xisuma stays with him and when Xisuma next makes Evil X something to eat, when the grumbling of his belly becomes too distracting to ignore, he makes something light enough for Evil X to keep down. The next time a hermit asks him what happened, it doesn't stick in his throat like an inflated pufferfish.

**There’s a version of events where Xisuma doesn't come for him when he wanders off with Scar to eat cake and talk about cats.** When there's only a sliver of evening light left Scar invites him back to ConCorp, and against his better judgment, he accepts. He goes to ConCorp. He doesn't just acquire a taste for cake that day. He acquires a taste for the vex, and the vex acquires a taste for him, too. 

In the presence of the vex he feels safe like he hasn't in so long. Cub and Scar are apprehensive at first, but they know better than to try and control the whims of the vex. Evil X is given a mask. He's given a new purpose. With an early in with the vex, he feels no need to take revenge on Mumbo. Cub and Scar learn every detail about the red sun world, but to the rest of the server, Evil X's time there continues to be shrouded in mystery. 

**Or it was Cub who first found him meditating on the sandy floor of the Coral Shop,** Cub who took him for cake—not to the bakery but to the country club. Instead of talking about cats, Cub teaches him about golf. He finds a serene peace in the game, a natural affinity for it. 

He dedicates his free time to helping Cub improve and expand the course, and in the process rediscovers a passion for building he thought he'd lost so long ago. When the vex decide they want Xisuma's doppelgänger there is no apprehension at the idea. Evil X has done more than enough to prove he belongs with the convex. If ConCorp was formidable before, with Evil X they're unstoppable. 

**Or neither of the convex find him.** He sits alone in the Coral Shop until Xisuma comes looking for him and he goes home, his belly empty and his head still full of anxiety. 

Months later, when he accidentally encounters the convex one restless night, he feels no draw to the vex magic that nips at him. He goes home to his cave. He sleeps. He doesn't seek out the vex again.

**In another version of events,** Evil X drags his axe up to Mumbo’s box. He smiles his cruel smile, and he slays Mumbo, over and over and over, until Mumbo doesn’t respawn anymore. The effect is near instant, the realization hits him like a ton of bricks. He’s killed Mumbo. He drops his axe, he backs away into the obsidian wall. When Iskall finally arrives he finds Evil X curled up, knees drawn to his chest, fingers tangled in his hair, and quietly begging Mumbo for forgiveness. 

Evil X is put in his own box. When the hermits visit him, he talks about Mumbo as if he’s still there. Xisuma is the only one that knows he is.

**Or maybe Evil X doesn’t kill Mumbo permanently.** Iskall doesn’t come to stop him, either. He swings and swings and swings his axe until he can’t swing it anymore. He collapses in a heap, panting and laughing and crying all at once. 

“I hate you,” Evil X tells Mumbo through hiccuping sobs.

“I know,” Mumbo says. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t feel better,” Evil X says. “Why don’t I feel better?”

“I don’t know,” Mumbo says. “I’m sorry.”

When Iskall comes he doesn’t lock Evil X into a bear hug, and Mumbo doesn’t pick up the axe to defend his friend. Instead, Iskall prys Evil X’s white-knuckled grip away from the axe’s handle, helps him to his feet, and gently escorts his shivering form out of Mumbo’s box. He sits with Evil X while Xisuma builds a second obsidian prison above his ocean monument base, one arm around Evil X’s shoulders as if to ground him.

Evil X doesn’t put up a fight when he’s put into his prison. He doesn’t say a word. He’s shocked when his first visitor in the box is Iskall. He’s shocked even more so when Iskall turns his notebook to Evil X and it reads,  _ Sometimes I think hurting Mumbo will fix me, too. _

And for the first time in years, Evil X doesn’t feel so alone. 

**When Evil X asks TFC when he's going to tell Xisuma where he is,** TFC responds, "That depends."

Instead of producing a potion of weakness, though, he asks Evil X a question. "When do you want to leave?"

Never, Evil X thinks. He doesn't want to leave ever. He doesn't want to go back to his obsidian prison, even if he's earned his cage. TFC sits across from him and when he speaks it's to amend his question. "Do you want to leave?"

Evil X shakes his head. 

So he doesn't leave. He stays with TFC in the vault. It's a prison as much as the obsidian box had been, but the winding corridors and farms and mine give him a sense of freedom that tiny room never could. 

When TFC calls him for meals he eats until his stomach begins to protest, a little more each day he's there. When TFC takes him into the mine he works until his weak muscles become sore, a little longer with each trip. He plays with the automated farms until the redstone ticking no longer bothers him. 

A Mr. Handy tells him a joke one day. Evil X laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Now is probably a good time to mention that my other series, vEX, started out as a sort of epilogue or sequel to MMHMMB which is why the convex scenarios include Evil X joining them. It's really it's own thing at this point, but if you go back and reread vEX you might see how some of the events of MMHMMB influenced the way I wrote Evil X. :) Particularly the fact that he already had an affinity for cake even before coming into contact with the vex...


End file.
